


A Sleeper and a Dreamer

by qualamity



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Captivity, Don’t copy to another site, Handfeeding, Interrogation, M/M, Violence, character injury, fairytale sleep science, mentions of torture, threats of mental violation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-09-25 01:50:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17112170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qualamity/pseuds/qualamity
Summary: Harry Potter transfers to the Technical Service Station with the hopes for a less stressful position and a little time to recover from an operation gone horribly wrong. Instead, he finds himself caught up in a conspiracy involving…well, he’s not really sure if Marvolo and Tom are the same person or two different people in different worlds who simply share the same face.Harry-2257 is designed to be a soldier, and that is all he has ever known. When he becomes an accidental test subject for the Ministry’s new serum to revolutionize the fight against the Knights, he finds himself first captured by the Knights, then in a different world of magic. But the most surprising thing is the man who talks to him like he’s human yet shares the same face as his captor in his reality.





	1. Entrance

**Author's Note:**

> Betaed by my benevolent overlord, [trashgoblinwizardparty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/trashgoblinwizardparty), who encouraged this fic to go on and gave me the motivation to keep writing. All mistakes are mine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tags for this chapter: interrogation, handfeeding, captivity

Harry’s legs ached as he finally made his way upstairs to his flat. In the days leading up to the winter solstice, even the agents were calmer, and he had fewer requisition forms to file. For the first time in weeks, Harry had a chance to go home and sleep in a bed that wasn’t a co-opted medical cot. What a winter miracle. He flopped onto his bed, not even bothering to get under the duvet. _Five minutes,_ he promised himself. Five minutes and then he would get up to make dinner. 

_He groaned and opened his eyes. Harry was tempted to go back to sleep, but his stomach was begging for something to eat, and he forced himself to sit up._

_Then, he noticed that the walls surrounding him were, instead of his warm beige with stacks of runic journals on the shelves pinned in place, a stark grey. He saw no windows or doors. Looking down, Harry realized that someone had also changed his clothes to a white shirt and a pair of trousers with no drawstrings. He had no shoes or socks, and his toes were starting to go numb. Goosebumps broke out on his arms from the cold air, and Harry hugged his knees to his chest, wishing he had a sweater or a sheet to wrap around his body._

_What had happened? Where was he? “Hello?” he called out cautiously. His voice came out raspy, like it had gone hoarse from disuse over a long time, and he licked his cracked, dry lips. How long had he been here?_

_Harry couldn’t hear anything, but a moment later, a portion of the wall farthest from the cot opened. A handsome man dressed in black walked in and the wall sealed behind him. “Are you ready to talk?” he asked, dark eyes pinning Harry in place._

_“Talk? Talk about what? Who the hell are you? Where am I?”_

_“Playing dumb? A curious new strategy. Did you really think that would save you? Get up.”_

_Harry hesitantly stood up. The cold floor shocked his system, and he curled his toes, trying to avoid touching the ground as much as possible._

_”Wrists.”_

_When Harry didn’t move, the man grabbed Harry’s left arm and snapped a metal band around. Then, he did the same with the right. The bands were like unlinked handcuffs but thicker._

_“Go to the door,” he ordered._

_What door? Harry took small steps until he reached the general area where the man had come from. The wall slid open, and they walked out. The man stalked down the hallways with quick steps, combat boots thumping against the ground rhythmically. He kept an arm around Harry, pulling him along the way, until they reached another blank wall in the strange building. A hole appeared, and they passed through._

_“No escape attempt?” The man ran a hand through Harry’s hair, coming to a rest at the nape of his neck. Harry could feel the heat from the man’s hand even through the leather gloves, and his body shivered. “I think this deserves a reward. Have you finally accepted that you can’t escape from me?”_

_Harry shut his eyes. “I have no idea who you are. Please just let me go. I won’t tell anyone,” he begged, and he hated himself a little for it._

_“Darling, if we release you, they’ll kill you again and again until you learn what an eternity of torment truly means. If you want to avoid that, you’ll tell us everything we want to know.”_

_Who in the abyss was_ they _? What was this man talking about? How could anyone be killed more than once? “I don’t know anything!”_

_“Still stubborn? I thought we were finally getting somewhere” He shook his head, as if disappointed. “Get on the chair.” The man pushed Harry when Harry couldn’t make his legs move._

_He stumbled forward and made his way to the chair. It looked like a chair at the dentist, long and reclining. The lumpy parts were uncomfortable under his back, but Harry soon forgot about that when the cuffs around his wrists bound him to the armrests of the chair. He struggled to lift an arm, but they never moved. How had they made such a powerful magnet this small? “This is just a dream,” he whispered to himself. “Just a dream.” He was going to wake up in his bed, in his flat, surrounded by his books. This wasn’t real._

_The man’s eyes sharpened on him. “A dream?” he echoed. “Are you asleep right now? I wonder.” He sounded more curious than mocking. “Perhaps a kiss will wake you up.”_

_What? He couldn’t be serious. Still, Harry held his breath and stared into dark eyes, waiting._

And then Harry woke up. 

He sprang out of bed, panting. “What the hell,” Harry said aloud, just because he could. His voice wavered a little, but he sounded fine, and he slumped back down, rubbing his wrists. By the abyss, Harry could still feel the weight of the cuffs. His lips tingled from anticipating the kiss. 

It figured that the closest Harry could get to a relationship was almost a kiss in a creepy dream.

Harry checked the time. He had slept for around two hours. Strangely, he wasn’t hungry anymore. Harry walked into his kitchen and saw an unwashed plate with crumbs on the dining table. Had he forgotten to clean up the last time he was home, whenever that was? He wouldn’t be surprised; Harry couldn’t even remember what he did yesterday, much less weeks ago.

He sighed and set the plate in the sink before going to the fridge. Expired. Expired. Takeout that had definitely gone bad. A jar of pickles but that wouldn’t make a dinner. He sighed and picked up a random takeout menu. Pizza it was, then.

By the time the small mushroom and sausage pizza came, Harry was exhausted again. He paid and forced himself to eat a slice before placing the rest in the fridge. A quick shower later, he curled up under his duvet, snuggled in the warmth.

 _Harry opened his eyes and froze. He was back in that strange room again, hands cuffed and attached to the chair like before. The room was comfortably warm this time. Harry didn’t know if that was a good thing or not, and he stayed tense._

_Could this truly be a dream? Harry could feel the metallic cuffs around his wrists, the magnets holding him as tightly as before to the chair, pinning him in place. Pulling on them only made the cuffs dig into his wrists, and he stopped struggling after his wrists started to burn, unwilling to risk his hands. Harry strained his neck to turn his head and look around the room, seeing what he had missed before._

_Yellow lamps lit the room with a soft, warm glow that made everything look cozy—for a prison. The walls were all bare, just like the cell. A metal desk stood off to the side. Harry could see a tray with plates of food, still lightly steaming. His stomach growled, and Harry flushed even though there was no one around to hear._

_“Hungry?”_

_Harry’s heart leapt to his chest, and he tried to sit up, only to be pulled back down by the metal cuffs._

_The man came into view as he headed towards the desk. He lifted a plate of small stuffed mushrooms and bit down on one, chewing with obvious relish. “Would you like one?” he asked after he swallowed._

_The hunger pains made Harry nod as best as he could from his reclined position. The man forked another mushroom and held it out, barely touching Harry’s lips. Harry bit down on it and nearly groaned from the bliss of tasting the mushroom with warm cheese, garlic, and other spices._

_“Are you ready to tell me about the maps?”_

_Harry frowned. “What maps?” Why couldn’t his dreams at least make some kind of sense?_

_“You know exactly what maps I mean,” the man responded and gave Harry another mushroom. As he bit down this time, a drop of butter landed on his lips. Before Harry could lick it away, the man ran a glove-covered finger along his lips, wiping the butter away._

_Harry forgot to chew for a moment, his lips tingling and his mind wondering what would happen if he had been in a club and the man had been a dom. Now that was a dream he would look forward to. “That’s going to stain,” he said, voice coming out hoarse and strained._

_”I am rather skilled at removing stains from my clothes.”_

_That wasn’t ominous or anything at all. Harry watched the man eat the last mushroom. As he walked back to the desk, a low humming sound filled the room. Harry looked around for the source, but he couldn’t see anything that would be buzzing or vibrating. The sound grew louder and louder._

Harry’s eyes snapped open to his own room, lights on. Had he really been so tired that he had forgotten to turn them off? Mind still half-dreaming, Harry looked around, positive that the man had to be here, but he saw no one. A moment later, Harry pinpointed the buzzing. His phone was vibrating on the dresser.

“Yes?” he answered.

“We need you to come in,” his supervisor from the Paranormal Secret Intelligence, or PSI, said.

Harry checked the clock. 4:05 am. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes, ma’am.”

* * *

When he made it to the Technical Services Station, or TSS, the floor was completely filled with people. A large blueprint had been projected onto the big screen. A woman with hair so blond that it was almost white stood in front, studying the prints. She wore a headset, indicating she had com-link access to an agent in the field. The desks were all occupied by people staring intently at their monitors and typing frantically on the keyboards with brief intermissions to argue and yell at one another. 

“Package located!” someone shouted over the chaos of the room. Instantly, the room fell silent. “First floor, second room in the hallway as you head east. The broom closet was mislabeled.” 

The woman said, “Head down the hallway and take the first door on the right. The package is inside.”

“It better be,” a familiar voice from his dreams responded pleasantly, broadcasted over the speaker in the room. “If I get shot again, someone will be shot when I get back.”

Harry rubbed his forehead. He needed to wake up and stop thinking about his ridiculous dreams. It helped when someone Harry didn’t recognize stopped in front of him.

“What are you doing standing around? There’s an agent who needs assistance!” 

“Sir, I just got here,” Harry said, but the sour-faced man had already stomped off to yell at someone else. He found an unoccupied corner and took out his tablet to read through recent mission statements. The top one, marked **Project Asterion: HAZARDOUS, ONGOING** in large, bold letters made Harry wince in fear of his supervisors and for the agent. In their line of work, all work in the field had some level of danger, and it took something extreme for the job to be deemed worthy of hazardous warnings.

Harry opened it. He resisted the urge to skim despite the urgency in the air, knowing that if he did, he could miss a crucial detail that would get someone maimed or killed. The agent on the scene was Tom Riddle. The job was supposedly a simple infiltration and retrieval that had gone haywire with old, mislabeled blueprints, which resulted in sending one lone agent into a firefight against wards created by a wardmaster, lethal defence mechanisms, and disposable soldiers to throw at a problem until it was dead. 

The mission statement listed the target package as maps. Hadn’t the man in his dreams said something about maps? _Stop thinking about it_ , he ordered himself. Harry continued reading and noted that they were maps for the Chamber of Secrets, where PSI stored dangerous magical artefacts. A shapeshifter had killed an agent and impersonated them for months, gathering information on the Chamber until they built a blueprint of the building, the specs of the protective wards, and a list of the artefacts and their locations. 

Essentially, things were currently a shit show, and Harry still didn’t know why he had been called in. He had filed a request for transfer to TSS two months ago, been approved one month ago, and started working two weeks ago. The only thing he was good at was filing requisition forms for new tech for the agents and explaining why the old ones were no longer working.

A looming shadow fell over him. “Potter, have you read up on Operation Asterion?” 

Harry leapt to his feet and clenched his tablet to his chest, meeting his supervisor’s eyes. “Yes, ma’am.” 

“I understand you have a background in cryptography and wardcrafting.” 

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Updates on the blueprints of this compound reveal that once triggered from the inside, a perimeter ward must be solved for passage. It cannot be passed by brute force. The agent on the scene will be at that ward in fifteen minutes. He needs a solution. You should have access to the ward’s specs. Solve the ward.” 

There was only one possible answer. “Yes, ma’am,” Harry forced himself to say and watched Minerva McGonagall walk away.

At the bottom of the mission statement, he tapped **Additional Stored Files** and entered his employee identification number and fourteen symbol security code in. The screen flashed green, indicating he had access.

Harry scrolled through the files until he found the current specs on the wards and brought them up on his screen. The three-dimensional array sparked uncomfortable memories in Harry, not dream-related–though he wished they were because then it wouldn’t be real–and he let himself hurt for a moment before remembering the stakes. An agent’s life. 

He rotated the array, studying it from multiple angles until he had a clear picture of the ward in his mind. It was a nasty, elegant ward that would absorb power thrown against it, making it stronger with every blow, which was why Riddle couldn’t physically break the ward. This one would likely have a password sequence that people there would carry around in order to pass. Harry didn’t have the password, so he needed to hack the ward, which meant coming up with an array that would make Riddle look invisible to the ward when he wrapped it around himself. If he was wrong, Riddle would be burnt to a crisp. And he now had...thirteen minutes to do it.

No pressure or anything.

Harry opened Runic Maker, a software created by the magical community specifically for ward design, and moved the window next to the ward specs on his tablet. He sat down again and used his knees as a stand for the tablet. With a stylus, Harry wrote runes to counter the ward, painfully making the lines clear and distinct no matter how much the feeling of urgency and the need to _move_ made him want to rush and finish it. 

With two minutes left on the clock, Harry studied ward and his hack, trying to be sure he didn’t miss anything. In an ideal world, he would construct both arrays in reality and test it and be sure it worked. 

This wasn’t an ideal world. Harry added it to the project file. A small tab popped up on the big screen. He watched the blond woman swipe away the tab and instruct Riddle on where to find his ward. 

“Are you sure about this?” Riddle asked. 

Across the room, the woman found Harry with unerring accuracy. Harry met the handler’s eyes and nodded. 

“Yes,” she said, and Harry wished he felt as confident as she sounded. 

The room became dead silent once more. Harry held his breath and waited, seeing if there would be a scream or anything that indicated something went wrong. 

“I’m clear,” Riddle said. “Heading to the apparition point now.”

Applause thundered. Harry slumped down, the adrenaline gone. His fingers had clenched the stylus so tightly that the skin had turned white from lack of blood flow, and he forced them to relax and drop the stylus. Harry wiped his sweaty palms on his trousers and shut his eyes. 

“Nice job on the ward.” 

Harry opened his eyes to see the blond handler. He flushed and stood up hastily, trying to smooth out the wrinkles in his clothes. “Thank you. I don’t believe we’ve met.” 

“Luna Lovegood. You’re Harry Potter, the newest transfer to TSS. You have a background in cryptography, symbols, and wards, and you were previously a MT.” MT was short for for magical technician. When a mission needed a specific piece of magical tech, the request went to MT, and they came up with the design. 

“You know a lot about me,” Harry said because there was nothing else he could say after that. He wondered if Luna knew the details of Operation Cloak. He hoped she didn’t.

“I know a lot about everyone,” she told him, large blue-grey eyes wide and solemn. “I know you’ll find a home here. Tom should be here soon. Will you take care of his inventory and ensure he goes to the healers?”

Harry nodded and left TSS. PSI’s headquarters had a designated apparition space on the fourth floor. It took Harry twenty-five minutes to walk there. Five minutes after he entered the room, a man appeared in the large empty square. He carried a black knapsack over his shoulders that Harry was supposed to take, but Harry could only stare at Riddle’s face.

The face from his dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Holidays!


	2. Run

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tags for this chapter: captivity

Harry made his numb lips work. “I can take your kit.” 

Riddle’s lips curved into a smirk. “Did Luna reward me with a pretty little bird for returning my com?” By the abyss, he even sounded exactly like the man from Harry’s dreams.

Harry felt his neck heat up in embarrassment, more from the dreams than from Riddle’s words, but he refused to look away. “I am also to escort you to the healers.”

“Darling, do I look like I need a healer?” 

Harry couldn’t help but run his eyes over Riddle’s body. A small part of his mind noted that he looked remarkably _identical_ to the man from his dreams. The rest of his mind focused on the part of Riddle’s green shirt that looked significantly darker than the rest, Harry distinctly remembered Riddle threatening to kill someone if he was shot again, meaning he had already been shot at least once. “Yes!”

“Wrong answer.” He tossed Harry the black knapsack.

Harry caught it with a grunt. It was light, not that Harry expected otherwise. He knew the reputation of the field agents after all. Riddle strolled past him, and Harry stared for a beat before rushing after him. “You’re bleeding!” 

“It’s just a scratch.” 

“I can’t believe you just said that. We’re going to the healers.”

Riddle smirked. “A medical cot isn’t the best place for sex, but if that’s what you’re into, I won’t judge.” 

“I should have let the ward fry you,” Harry muttered.

Riddle stopped without a warning, and Harry, still half-running, almost ran into the taller man. Dark eyes focused on him. “You’re the agent from Op Cloak who survived.”

Survived. That was a nice way to put it. “You don’t know anything about Operation Cloak,” Harry bit out.

The agent studied him, and Harry refused to give in to the urge to shift or break eye contact. “Medical then?” 

The rapid change of subject startled him. What had changed Riddle’s mind about seeing the healers? Harry hoped it wasn’t pity.

They walked to Medical, located on the second floor. It took up an entire wing of the building, and it looked remarkably like the prison in Harry’s dreams, with grey walls and shiny clean white floors. This was probably where his mind had drawn inspiration from. Harry waited just long enough to make sure a healer saw Riddle, ignored the way most of the staff there were staring at him as though he were some sort of alien, and fled back to TSS.

The room had become significantly emptier, and his desk was unoccupied once more. Harry set the kit down and opened it. One broken com-link, one miraculously intact com-link, and one piece of paper with beautiful golden runes glowing brightly. 

Most people needed chalk and a decent chunk of free space on the ground to make the ward, and it would be a stationary ward. A few could use magic and paper as a focus to bring a mobile ward to life. And those who had gone through the training for a mastery in runic magic could do it with a simple thought.

Riddle had some runic background and could write beautifully with magic. The other side of the paper had a part of a notice which Harry guessed was for a meeting; Riddle had likely found a piece of scratch paper to use. Harry stared at the now-empty kit incredulously. He had known of the field agent reputation but this was… 

“Ah, that’s Tom’s kit then?” a black-haired woman asked cheerfully as she came to a stop next to him. 

Harry lifted his head and swivelled his chair to face her. “How did you know?” 

“The other agents at least bring something back for us to mourn and bury.” She paused as Harry let out a loud, unexpected laugh. “But no, the other agents do try to take good care of our tech. More or less. They bring back around eighty percent of the remains, and we can salvage some pieces from that. Tom, on the other hand, will somehow toss his kit into the ocean even when he’s miles away from any source of water larger than a toilet.”

Harry choked on a laugh.

The woman offered a brilliant smile. “You think I’m joking, but sadly, I’m serious. I’m Daphne Greengrass, handler for Pansy Parkinson.” 

“Harry Potter.” 

“The requisitions forms newbie! You’re levelling up. Welcome to TSS.”

The _what_? Was that really what the other TSS agents knew him as? Harry wanted to face plant onto the desk. It could be worse, he supposed. They could know him as the Op Cloak agent. 

“Did I embarrass you?” Daphne let out another bright, delighted laugh. “My sister tells me I do it all the time to her. I’ll stop distracting you then. You should come by the break room some time and meet the others.” 

Harry didn’t quite know what to say in response to that, and Daphne waved and started walking away before he could accept the offer. “Bye,” Harry called out and watched Daphne click away on her spiked heels. He marvelled at their height for a moment before going back to the kit. 

* * *

_Harry opened his eyes with a yawn and blinked a few times to clear the haze from his vision. Grey walls and a long hallway greeted him. Again? Seriously? What was going on in his head to make him dream this place again and again? Perhaps he was due for another psych eval._

_The pounding of footsteps thundered behind him. Harry turned and saw guards in the black uniform sprinting down the hallway. Instinct took over. He took off in the opposite direction, not sure where he was going and no plan in mind. The only thing he knew was he couldn’t be caught._

_He ran down the stairs, taking two or three at a time and leaping across the final five. The sudden jarring pain made Harry stumble, but he grabbed the handrail and steadied himself just enough to keep running. There! A door! Harry tried the handle. Unlocked. He pushed it open and found himself in an idyllic garden of pretty blooms and lush green bushes and trees. The sight was so jarring that he came to a halt for a second to reassure himself he was not hallucinating before taking off again._

_The garden had no other doors. Harry moved to crouch behind a bush, peeking through gaps to see five guards enter the garden. They slowed and spread out, starting to comb through the garden methodically._

_Harry reached for his magic to create a ward that he could wrap around himself and make him less noticeable._

_Nothing happened. Harry tried again. Still nothing happened._

_What in the world? Harry hadn’t failed to bring up wards in_ years _. Fear turned his palms sweaty, and Harry crawled even deeper into the garden, taking care to keep his body low and out of sight._

_One of the guards made his way down the path. When he almost reached Harry’s hiding place, Harry swung a thick branch. It whacked the man’s ankles, and he fell, head thumping loudly against the ground. He hit the man again in the abdomen to make sure he would stay down. A quick search of the guard came up with the magnet cuffs and a thick baton. He couldn’t figure out how to make the cuffs open. Harry tossed them aside after a few seconds. The baton Harry gripped tightly. He crawled past the bushes to a large tree._

_Another guard made her way in his direction. Harry tensed and gripped the baton tightly. As she passed, he struck at her legs. The guard dodged at the last second. He kicked at her legs, swiping them out from under her. She let out a shout as she slammed onto the ground. Harry shut his eyes as he hit her on the head, praying the blow wouldn’t kill her._

_The woman’s shout had alerted other guards. Three formed a perimeter around him._

_Harry ran at the closest guard. He blocked the guard’s baton and kneed the man in the groin. When the man faltered in pain, Harry stomped on his feet and slammed the baton into his side. The man fell into a bush. Harry started running again, just to be tackled to the ground by a heavier weight._

_Harry fought and writhed, but no matter how much he struggled, he couldn’t escape. The guard slapped the magnet cuffs on his wrists. A bright blue light appeared between the metal bands, binding them together. The other guard did the same to Harry’s legs before tossing Harry over her shoulder in a fireman carry._

_”I’ll take him to Marvolo. Make sure the others are okay,” she said in a familiar voice. She took him through the halls, navigating the maze with confidence. Harry craned his neck, trying to see where they were going. They reached a blank wall. It opened, and the woman walked in._

_”He tried to flee?” Dream Tom asked mildly._

_”I’ll determine how he got out of his cell.” Daphne, Harry realized. This was Dream Daphne. “What do you want with him?”_

_”Leave him.”_

_She dropped him on the ground. Harry winced as pain shot through his body and he watched her step through the hole._

_Dream Riddle—Marvolo, Harry supposed—walked to Harry’s bound body and stared down at him, amusement clear on his face. “An escape attempt? You’ll have to be punished for that. Oh darling, you were doing so well.”_

_Harry flinched away from Marvolo as much as possible and tried not to think about the last time he had tried and failed to escape from a captor._

_A device on Marvolo’s belt beeped a few times, and Marvolo picked it up. It looked a little smaller than a smartphone, and of course, it was black like everything else. “You didn’t kill anyone. Are you disappointed?”_

_”No,” Harry said honestly. He had never killed anyone before; it wasn’t common for MTs to even be in the field._

_”Really? Interesting. You didn’t fight fair.”_

_”What is fairness worth in a fight when the prize is survival and the consequence is death or worse?” Harry quoted from the basic training manual. “Five against one isn’t fair. Armed against unarmed isn’t fair.”_

_”I never claimed we fought fair either.”_

Harry’s eyes flew open and he leapt to his feet. The back of his legs hit something, knocking it over. It banged against the ground. Harry jumped and spun around. Just a chair. He bent down to lift it upright, only to realize his wrists and legs were free. A dream. Just a dream. It was getting too easy to forget that.

He was in the…break room? When had he come here? There was even a half-eaten bag of crisps and an empty plate in front of him. Had he really eaten and fallen asleep without realizing it? Harry groaned and rubbed a hand over his face. Abyss, he really needed to get more sleep.

“Long day?” Daphne asked with a laugh as she stopped by the doorway. 

Harry felt his neck and face heat up. “Long decade,” he responded dryly. 

“I’d say it gets better but the requisition forms are horrible. Oh, paperwork, why do you hurt me so?” She let out a dramatic sigh and pressed the back of her hand to her forehead like she was about to faint.

He tossed the empty plate and folded the bag of crisps. “Can I help you with something?” 

“I’m only here to gossip. There’s a certain agent in TSS right now looking for a certain techie.”

“Riddle? He’s not still with the healers?” Magic stirred within him at the thought of Riddle and Marvolo, and Harry’s shoulders slumped a little in relief when he realised he still had his wards.

Daphne’s eyes sparkled. “It’s interesting that your first thought was Riddle. I don’t blame you. He has rather nice assets.”

Harry wanted to spontaneously combust. “I haven’t noticed. Is it not Riddle?” 

“No, it is. And he’s looking for you. It’s a wonder you got him to go to the healers in the first place. How did you do it?”

“I asked,” he said simply, not wanting to explain the entire exchange that he still didn’t quite understand. He groaned and rubbed his forehead. “I should go see what he wants.”

“And if what he wants is you?”

Harry let out a sharp laugh at that. Riddle was attractive, talented, and dangerous, a combination that could lure all kinds of people to his bed. “The abyss will brighten before Riddle does anything more than exchange barbs and flirt with a technician.”

“Go on then. I release you.” Daphne held her arms up as though she were a great deity and he was a lowly worshiper. “If you can get him back to the healers, get some sleep. I’ll finish off your paperwork for you. But, Harry, just so you know, if you want him to stop flirting, all you have to do is tell him. Tom does understand what no means.” 

“Thanks,” Harry murmured, not sure he actually wanted Riddle to stop. Here was a man who knew at least something about Operation Cloak but didn’t see Harry as someone fragile. He stepped by Daphne, entering TSS’ main floor. As she said, the injured idiot was lounging around TSS. Riddle had found Harry’s desk somehow even though Harry had no name plate or personal effects, and he was casually flipping through the papers. Papers Harry was filling out because Riddle’s kit had vanished into the depths of the abyss.

“Is there something you need?” Harry asked. The frost in his own words surprised him, and Harry could feel sudden irritation rolling around in his mind along with the phantom aches all over his body from being tackled then bound by the guards, then tossed in front of Marvolo. Logically, he knew that this man had nothing to do with his dream. He had probably seen the man’s face somewhere and his mind chose to cast Riddle in his dreams. 

He was being irrational. Harry took a deep breath and shoved his frustration away with his exhaustion into some deep corner of his mind. 

Luckily, Riddle didn’t seem offended. “Darling, you seem distressed. Problems sleeping?” Riddle asked. Harry would have thought he was sincere in his concern except Tom had a smug smirk on his face. 

What if Riddle knew about the dreams? Immediately, Harry dismissed the possibility from his mind. Riddle wasn’t a telepath. No, he was probably just observant and noticed the shadows beneath Harry’s eyes. 

“I sleep just fine. I’d sleep more if agents would fill out the paperwork for breaking their tech instead of making TSS do it for them,” Harry said.

Riddle’s eyes widened in overdone fake horror. “But I’m injured. Would you really make me do paperwork when I’m injured?” 

“It might stop you from getting shot again.” Harry paused and eyed his shirt, now a black one. He could see no signs of a blood stain, but no one healed from getting _shot_ in a matter of hours, even with the aid of a healer. “Paperwork, now. Unless you go back to the healers.”

“Do I look like I need a healer?” 

“Yes.” A lie, but Harry knew that he sounded as confident as before.

Riddle heaved a loud sigh, as if Harry were the exasperating one for wanting Riddle to not bleed out on his desk.

“To the healers,” Harry ordered. 

“Might I get a kiss before I go, darling?”

Harry felt his cheeks heat up again. Abyss, why did he have to blush so much? It didn’t help that Riddle was ridiculously handsome. “Go.” He pointed to the door.

Riddle hopped off his desk and set the papers down in a messy pile. “I’ll dream of you.”

“That’s lovely. I won’t be dreaming of you,” Harry said, but he had a feeling this was just another lie. He walked Riddle to the healers and found an unused medical cot to collapse on and sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy 2019!


	3. Operation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags for this chapter: captivity (this is an ongoing tag as you've probably noticed)

_Harry-2257 opened his eyes and found himself staring at a white ceiling, lit with bright lights that hurt his eyes. He blinked furiously a few times to clear the spots out of his vision. The sleeper’s body did not seem to be augmented and lacked the tech Harry-2257 had inserted in his own body, and he missed the rapid visual adjustments that had saved his life more than once._

_A neurological trigger in his facial muscles made his mouth open widely, a strange movement that did not seem to do anything yet he could not control. Harry-2257 wiggled his toes and fingers to ensure they were functional. ___

___The glimpses of this other world fascinated Harry-2257. Some, like the crunchy salt-coated thin yellow foods, were completely alien to him. Others, like this bright space, reminded him of a recalibration facility, and the thought made him leave the cot with a desperate need to escape._ _ _

___Harry-2257 wandered through the white space, walking without hesitation even though he had no idea where he was going. He had learned that faking confidence would stop people from trying to talk to him._ _ _

___Or not._ _ _

___A deft hand snagged his sleeve as he passed, pulling him to a stop. “You look so busy, darling. I thought you were going to sleep._ _ _

___Harry-2257 turned to look at the speaker and nearly fell on his face. Marvolo. The man currently holding him captive and would probably kill him unless Harry-2257 escaped. This had to be Marvolo’s sleeper. What were the chances his sleeper knew Marvolo’s sleeper? Apparently not zero. Harry-2257 pushed the panic aside and forced himself to think, say something. “Yes, I decided to go get some work done since I couldn’t sleep.”_ _ _

___Marvolo’s lips curved into a smile that made Harry-2257 think the man was going to eat him. “Darling, you work so hard. Maybe you should consider taking a break.”_ _ _

___Was he the supervisor? What was Harry-2257 supposed to say? “I am happy to work when I am needed.”_ _ _

___“Really, darling? You didn’t sound so enthusiastic when you were doing paperwork.”_ _ _

___Harry-2257 cursed his sleeper for having the bad sense to fall asleep in the same facility Marvolo was located in and arranged his facial muscles to scowl at Marvolo. “Paperwork is terrible. Please excuse me,” he said and pulled his arm out of the man’s hold. He hadn’t expected it, but Marvolo let him go without losing his smile._ _ _

___Outside of the white facility, Harry-2257 changed his walk to keep his head down and shoulders hunched, looking more passive and quiet to hopefully prevent anyone else his sleeper knew from approaching him. He luxuriated in stretching out his body and moving free without the binding cuffs around his wrists. He had no guards surrounding him, ready to chase him down the moment he appeared to be fleeing. The freedom was glorious._ _ _

___And terrifying. Terrifying because Harry-2257 didn’t know if his sleeper would wake up and find his body in a strange place. It would be bad if his sleeper realised something was happening and told Marvolo. He needed to control the situation before Marvolo figured something was amiss._ _ _

___So far, Marvolo had given no indication that he noticed constant switching, and Harry-2257 saw no reason why Marvolo would keep that information to himself when he could use it as leverage. A threat of eternal death. More scientific tests, which would probably also end in his death._ _ _

___As much as the Knights and the Ministry hated each other, they were more similar than either would ever dare admit, and both wanted a way to eternally kill their enemies. Harry-2257 didn’t know what he believed in. All he had were a map downloaded in his brain and a serum in his blood that made him more vulnerable than any other person in his world._ _ _

___For in a world of immortals, where death was a brief moment that always passed—except in one scenario no one could control—he was now terrifyingly mortal. The next time he died, he would stay dead, and his sleeper would die with him. Or so it should be in theory. Harry-2257 wasn’t about to test it._ _ _

___Harry-2257’s body shivered at the thought of eternal death, and he walked faster, not sure where he was going but unable to stay in place. The same energy that drove him to become a retrieval specialist—though he was sorely considering changing career paths if he survived this—drove Harry-2257 to explore the building he was currently housed in now that he no longer hungered._ _ _

___It was a building quite unlike those of his world. Hallways were lit by those same blocks of bright lights that hurt his eyes. Most of the walls were grey, but there were splashes of colour from framed holograms on the wall. These were a strange type of hologram he had never seen before, colours opaque and two-dimensional. They had a stillness to them that made them look alien to his eyes. Despite all the colour, none of the hologram plants could be mistaken for real._ _ _

___Harry-2257 reached out and touched one, only for his hand to hit something solid. A thin glass sheet he had missed before. Fascinating._ _ _

___He pulled his hand back and continued on his way. Last time, he had found himself in a room with foodstuffs and had a delicious snack. This time, he ended up walking in a circle, and he found himself in front of the white facility once more. Taking it as a sign, Harry-2257 walked in and laid flat on the cot, staring at the lights as he waited for the shift to happen._ _ _

__The change was as abrupt as ever. One moment he was laying down, and the next, he was sitting in his cell with a bowl of gruel in his hands, the bland taste already in his mouth. It was a sharp contrast from the delicious foods Marvolo had fed him, and Harry-2257 missed it, if not the company._ _

__As he adjusted to his surroundings, he took another bite of the gruel calmly, an act for the microcameras inserted into the walls. Harry-2257 did not know if the Knights monitored the feed the old-fashioned way or if some guards had the feed directly sent to implants in the eyes, but they responded instantly to any abnormal actions._ _

__Harry-2257 could not let them know he had the serum injected in his blood nor the maps to the location of the lab downloaded in his head. He had always worked with physical object retrievals, but he knew there were those who could steal from the mind. The Knights had not yet found one to enter his mind, but for now, they believed he had hidden the maps in a physical location. Mental retrievals had a chance of failure, a result that ended in scrambling the brains of the retrieval specialist and the target._ _

__The cold from the ground easily penetrated the thin material of his trousers and shirt, and Harry-2257 wiggled his toes to keep the circulation going through his legs. After the failed escape attempt—of all the times his sleeper had to fall asleep, why then?—Marvolo removed any comforts he had in that room. No cot, no pillow. No delicious foods, though at least he was spared Marvolo’s company and tendency to handfeed._ _

__Harry-2257 took it as a compliment that Marvolo didn’t trust him enough to leave his hands free._ _

__When the mech-wall opened, the interrogator stepped in. Harry-2257 remained indolent on the floor, making sure to look engrossed while counting tiles in the cell._ _

__“Are you going with the silent treatment now?” the irritating man drawled._ _

___Yes_ , Harry-2257 thought. Perhaps he was being petulant, but he thought he had a pretty good excuse._ _

__“You know, it’s one of the skills the Ministry teaches in anti-interrogation.”_ _

__Harry-2257 jerked his head up to look at Marvolo, then scowled. Attempt at ignoring Marvolo: officially successful for thirty seconds._ _

__“They drill it into their soldiers,” Marvolo continued casually, “because to talk to an interrogator is to form the beginning of a bond. Still, the temptation to explain yourself is strong, and I’ve seen even the best fall.”_ _

__“And what are the tricks they teach the interrogators?” Harry-2257 asked because he had already skipped past the not-talking stage._ _

__Marvolo let out a rich laugh that filled the cell. “I’m not the type to share my secrets, but perhaps if you part with one of your own, I’ll consider it.”_ _

__Harry-2257 snorted. “I’m not going to tell you where to find the maps,” he said tiredly._ _

__“Why not?” It was the first time Marvolo had asked him why._ _

__Harry’s eyes widened in surprise. He had no prepared lie for this, not when he thought Marvolo was one of those who always ever demanded and expected to be obeyed. “I want to live,” he found himself saying honestly. Sudden panic pooled into his stomach. Had he said too much?_ _

__However, Marvolo only took the half-finished bowl of gruel and walked out silently. He came back ten minutes later with a pillow and a soft blanket, and Harry’s heart sank. He had most definitely said too much._ _

* * *

__Left alone with his thoughts, Harry-2257 wondered exactly what Marvolo had figured out from his words. He loathed the presence of the pillow and blanket even though he used both and hoped a shift would happen if only so that he could do _something_. However, his sleeper stayed awake, leaving-Harry-2257 to agonize and wonder what Marvolo was planning. _ _

__How long had he even been here? He had never seen the need to pay for a time implant in his head when there were still a few watch manufacturers despite the declining popularity, but the Knights had taken everything external when they captured him. The visits and meals were irregular, and he had lost track of time ages ago._ _

__A sudden anger erupted inside him. Harry-2257 slammed the wall with his fists, feeling the microcameras crunch beneath his hands. How dare they kidnap him and expect him to give them the location of something that could kill hundreds? How dare they presume they had the moral high ground?_ _

__He heard the slide of the mech-wall, but before he could do anything, strong arms wrapped around him, pinning his arms down._ _

__“Calm down,” Marvolo said against his ear._ _

__“‘Let me go,” Harry-2257 snarled, struggling in his hold. “You imprisoned me and for what? Maps? A serum so you can assassinate the Ministry? Your propaganda talks about how much you value life, but in the end, you’re all the same. We’re just disposable clones, right? Kill off the 2257, there are still 2256 for you to use.”_ _

__“3999 actually,” Marvolo responded calmly. “The Ministry made four thousand G9 models. Then again, I don’t know how many of them are still alive, so you could be correct.”_ _

__“You’re an arsehole.”_ _

__“I never claimed otherwise. But here’s the thing. I don’t think of you as 2257.”_ _

__“Am I prisoner 609 or something?” Harry-2257 asked, sarcasm dripping from every word._ _

__“You’re Harry. Now let’s get your hands fixed up.”_ _

__The use of his name without a number attached shocked Harry-2257 out of his rage, and he finally felt the pain in his knuckles. They were bruised and bloody, little pieces of broken grey microcameras embedded in the skin._ _

__Marvolo changed his grip on Harry-2257’s body to a single arm. With the other, he slipped on the binding cuffs around Harry-2257’s wrists. Marvolo guided him out of the cell, and they went in a new direction this time, twisting and turning until they ended up in a brightly lit, white facility._ _

__Harry-2257 froze. “I don’t need to be recalibrated,” he snapped. After the G6 catastrophe, the Ministry destroyed all the clones and the ones that came after had a built-in reset switch that could be triggered with a chemical cocktail. It wiped the brains and reset the programs to the default. Recalibration, they called it._ _

__“This is a medical facility. We’re only going to take a look at your hand.” Marvolo ran a hand down Harry-2257’s back, soothing him._ _

__He reluctantly walked in, only because he knew Marvolo could use the binding cuffs to force him to move. Inside, a small blond woman stood up from her desk and came over._ _

__“Luna, check his hands,” Marvolo said._ _

__The woman put on a pair of latex gloves and lifted Harry-2257’s hands closer to her face. “It doesn’t look too bad, but I’ll scan the bones for fractures after I remove the metal shards. Take a seat.”_ _

__Marvolo guided Harry-2257 over to an office chair with soft cushions next to where he had first seen the woman. Luna came back with a tweezer and started removing the microcamera pieces with quick, deft movements. The blood had dried a little on his hands, making some of the pieces stick. Harry-2257 tried to pull his hands back automatically, but Luna was surprisingly strong. Her hands tightened on his wrist, pinning his hand in place._ _

__“Almost done,” Luna murmured. She tore open a package. “This is going to sting a little.” Then, she pressed down._ _

__Pain shot through Harry-2257’s hands, and he gritted his teeth, tried to avoid pulling away again. A moment later she patted the cuts with a gauze and brought over a metal band two centimetres in width and slightly longer than the width of his hand. “Place your hand on the table palms down and fingers spread,” Luna ordered. When Harry-2257 did so, she ran the portable scanner down his hand. “No fractures. I’m going to wrap this up for you just in case of infection, but the cuts aren’t deep and should be fine soon with the G9 healing factor.”_ _

__“Thanks,” he said awkwardly._ _

__Marvolo took Harry-2257 out of the medical facility and they went through the maze of hallways again until they reached an inconspicuous mech-wall at the end of a hall. It slid open to reveal an office. “Sit,” he ordered._ _

__Harry-2257 did not sit. “What are you doing?”_ _

__“Working.” Marvolo pointed to a large chair with forest green cushions._ _

__He scowled and walked over to the chair, dropping down stiffly. Harry-2257 had no illusions about why Marvolo was keeping him here. They needed time to fix the microcameras after all._ _

__Harry-2257 rested his cuffed hands in his lap and tilted his head towards the ceiling, staring at nothing as he waited for something to happen._ _

___The world shifted. His sleeper had fallen asleep at his desk again, and Harry-2257 remembered this room from one of the shifts. It appeared to be an office of some sort, with desks spread out, filled with people bent over. There were occasional snippets of conversation that he couldn’t quite hear._ _ _

___Thinking he should pretend as though he were working, Harry-2257 flipped through the papers the sleeper had fallen asleep on. They were all titled requisition forms, and beyond that, he couldn’t actually read anything._ _ _

___“It’s fascinating to me that you can draw beautiful wards and yet still write like_ that_,” a woman drawled as she came up beside him._

_Harry-2257 turned and froze at the sight of one of the Knights. But no, he reminded himself, she wasn’t a Knight, only the sleeper of a Knight. “I’m talented?” he tried._

_“Uh huh. There’s a meeting in conference room C in fifteen for you to impress everyone with your talent.” She let out a laugh at Harry-2257’s horrified expression that he couldn’t hide. “Just kidding. It’s about Operation Asterion.”_

_Those words meant nothing to him. How could his sleeper have fallen asleep at such a horrible time? “Thank you for alerting me,” he said._

_“No problem. Details have been emailed to you, but I wanted to let you know just in case you didn’t check your email in time since it’s pretty short notice. I have to do something real quick, but then we can go together.” The woman darted off before Harry-2257 could say anything else._

_This was a big bloody mess, but Harry-2257 couldn’t see any way out but forward._

_The sleeper did not wake up, and Harry-2257 made a decision that caused his hands to sweat and his heart to beat like a fluttering bird was trapped in his chest._

_After ten minutes, the woman returned, a stranger at her side. “We haven’t met yet,” the stranger said. “Pansy Parkinson, field agent.”_

_“Harry,” Harry-2257 said, the name awkward on his mouth without his identification number. Too late, he realised there was a possibility that his sleeper went by a different name. But they didn’t say anything, and he relaxed. Too soon._

_“Daphne tells me you’re new to TSS,” Pansy said. “What do you think so far? McGonagall working you hard? Tom driving you mad?”_

_“It’s great,” Harry-2257 said with false brightness. “Everyone has been great.”_

_The woman Harry-2257 supposed was Daphne let out a snort. “Has Tom been great?” she asked, a grin peeking out._

_“Yes?” He had a feeling he missed something._

_“Great in bed?”_

_Harry-2257s cheeks burned. “No!” He slapped a hand over his mouth, mortified and horrified. What was his sleeper even doing?_

_“Darling, I’m bad in bed? That cuts me. Deeply.” Marvolo’s eyes were warm in a way Harry-2257 had never seen before. Harry-2257 had seen him in the white place—a medical facility, he now realised. And his sleeper was in bed with him? Why did he have such horrible taste?_

_“Hi, Tom,” the two women chorused brightly._

_“Daphne. Pansy.” Marvolo—Tom—nodded at them in greeting. “I suppose I’ll be working with you on Operation Asterion.”_

_Pansy’s expression sobered instantly, turning into a cool, professional mask. “Probably. You’re healed?”_

_“Passed the physical this morning.” Tom opened the door and made a grand gesture with his hands for them to enter._

_Conference room C was a small room. It had an oval desk with four chairs on either side, and one was already occupied by Luna’s sleeper. Daphne and Pansy dropped down to two of the open seats and Harry-2257 sat beside them. Tom moved to the other side of the table and pulled out the chair next to Luna._

_“There is a mole in PSI,” Luna began. “We are unsure of their identity, but we believe they are in TSS. The only TSS agents that have been cleared are the ones sitting in this room right now.”_

_His sleeper worked for TSS, Harry-2257 remembered. This did not sound good for him._

_“The blueprints in Operation Asterion were sabotaged,” she continued. “The people with access to it in preparation for the op were all TSS agents. The job is to find the mole. In the meantime, we will make it look as though Pansy and Tom are continuing Operation Asterion and pursuing the people who hired the shapeshifter to steal the maps.”_

_Tom bared his teeth in a feral grin. “They’ll try to kill us. It’s going to be fun.” He had a horrible idea of what was fun._

_Luna rolled her eyes before turning to face Harry. “Harry, I understand your reasons for requesting a transfer out of MT, but we need to keep this operation as small as possible to prevent a possible leak. Can you be the MT on call for Pansy and Tom.” Solemn silver-blue eyes met his._

_“Yes,” Harry-2257 said, and he hoped it was the right answer._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tentative preview of the next chapter: **To Harry: Do not panic. You don’t know me, and we will never meet because we share a body.**


	4. Identity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New Tags: fairy tale sleep science, mentions of torture, character injury  
> Revisiting: captivity, handfeeding

_Harry opened his eyes and stared at Tom, sitting behind a desk. What a strange sight. Harry had never thought that the field agent would seem at home with a desk job, but his head was bent down in concentration as his hand moved furiously across pages, never pausing to think. Then again, it made sense that a field agent would have the intense focus necessary to observe their targets for hours at a time and that focus would transfer over to their day-to-day life. What would that focus be like in bed?_

_His hand moved automatically to push his glasses up to get a better look—despite not wearing glasses for four years now—and then he noticed the stabbing pain in his knuckles. His hands were bound, not just with cuffs this time, but also with white bandages, thick enough that it was hard for him to close his hands into a fist. Harry tried to move his fingers in such a way that he could grip a stylus and design a ward, and they failed to close._

_What had happened to his hands? What would he do if he could never ward again? His beloved hands, he had taken care of them his entire life, never getting more than a blister—other than that time when they had broken his fingers when he had refused to cooperate. His mind shied away from the memories of Operation Cloak._

_“Settle down,” Tom said._

_Settle down? His hands—his livelihood—were shattered, and Tom wanted him to settle down? Harry opened his mouth to tell Tom exactly what he thought about that order, and then he noticed it. The dark grey walls, the institution uniform he wore, the cuffs he had seen and then dismissed in favour of the bandages around his hands._

_This was a dream. Harry took a deep breath to steady himself and wrap his mind around that fact._

_It didn’t feel like a dream. It felt like his hands were broken. Weren’t you supposed to not be able to feel pain in a dream? Another breath. Harry forced himself to take in his surroundings. He sat in a chair made with a dark green fabric. His wrists were bound like normal—and a part of his brain wondered how this had become his normal so quickly. Tom—Marvolo—worked at a desk that took up the majority of the room. No personal effects, but there was a plate of pastries of some kind that drew his gaze. The smell made Harry’s stomach rumble, and his cheeks flushed._

_“Do you want something to eat?”Marvolo asked, dark eyes amused._

_Harry wondered what this amusement meant for him and tried not to picture Marvolo eating him instead. “Yes,” he said, and his voice cracked a little. “Please.” The word fell out involuntarily, but it made Marvolo smile, and for a moment, Harry thought Marvolo would tell him he had been good for being polite. Harry shook off the thought. He was_ not _going to dream about sex with a dream facsimile of his co-worker_

_“Open,” Marvolo said, holding a pastry close to Harry’s mouth._

_Harry licked his lips and parted them. “Is it poisoned?” he asked with a nervous laugh._

_“Try it and see.”_

_Harry bit down. The sweet taste of apples shocked his taste buds, and he let out an involuntary moan. He had always had a weakness for sweets and delicious foods, though no one would know that considering his abysmal eating habits. “What is this?” Harry asked after he swallowed._

_“Apple dumplings. Made from real apples, not the powder the Ministry sells with the rations.” Marvolo’s sneer made it obvious what he thought of that. “Eat.”_

_Harry made his way through two more apple dumplings before Marvolo took the plate away. Belatedly, he thought to say, “I have hands.”_

_Marvolo arched an eyebrow. “I don’t see the relevance.”_

_He rolled his eyes and curled up in the chair, waiting to wake up._

Harry’s eyes fluttered open, and he stretched in his chair a little, wondered if his dreams were telling him he needed to eat more. Then he noticed the papers in his hands, words written in painfully precise letters.

**To Harry: Do not panic. You don’t know me, and we will never meet because we share a body. When you sleep, I occupy your body and you occupy mine. I know you have questions, but I do not have a lot of time. Do not trust Marvolo. Below is an enclosed copy of a transcript of the events that occurred while you were asleep. I advise you memorize the contents and burn when done.**

**-Harry-2257**

Was this a joke? Harry flipped through the rest of the stack and saw the same handwriting detail a conversation between Luna, Pansy, Daphne, Tom, and himself about moles and Operation Asterion and by the abyss, _was this real_?

Harry grabbed his tablet and accessed the security feed of TSS. He went back ten minutes and saw himself writing on the paper. Harry stared incredulously and went back even further until he saw himself slump down, asleep. Around ten minutes later, he sat up again and started rifling through papers on a desk. 

He was going to throw up. Was he possessed? He had heard stories of possessions wreaking havoc on a person’s life, but he hadn’t done anything to get himself possessed! 

Harry took a shuddering breath and forced himself to continue viewing the security feed. Daphne stopped by, left, and returned with an unknown woman. Harry checked the handwritten pages. Pansy, perhaps. Tom came by. They left, going to one of the conference rooms in TSS. The rooms didn’t have security feeds, but according to the time stamp, an hour later, they exited. He returned to his seat and started writing on blank pages. 

He needed to do something. Anything. Get up, move, run, escape. His hands shook as his fingers clenched down, papers crinkling. The handwritten pages. If they were real, if the details of the meeting were written exactly and TSS had a mole, he had to get rid of it. Harry went to the break room, still holding onto the pages, and made a cup of instant coffee. He gulped down the scalding drink and made a second cup. 

PSI had certain places without security cameras. The conference rooms were one of them, but Harry couldn’t go into them without questions being asked. Instead, he headed to the bathroom. After checking to make sure all the stalls were empty, he locked the door and smoothed out the transcript.

Apparently, Tom had flirted with him in his sleep. Harry wanted to face palm. Abyss, he was never talking to Daphne again.

Then, things got serious. A mole in TSS who sabotaged Operation Asterion. Pansy and Tom were going forward on Operation Asterion, and there was a strong likelihood the mole would continue trying to kill them. Daphne and Luna were going to determine who the mole was. And apparently, he was their acting MT.

Harry closed his eyes and concentrated on breathing. First possession and now he was neck deep in the life of a spy again. Perhaps silly, but he had never joined PSI with the intention of becoming a spy. He had only ever wanted to make wards for people, and now he only wanted to do it at a simple, safe desk job. What even happened? Was this real life? Was he dreaming again?

Even if this were a prank, even if someone had figured out how to change the security feeds and make it look like he had sleepwalked, Harry couldn’t take that chance. He would rather be mocked than accidentally kill two agents because something decided to take over his body when he was asleep. At least it seemed like a friendly possession. Harry swallowed another mouthful of coffee.

He closed his eyes and counted his breaths until his heart slowed. After looking over the pages one more time, he finger-drew runes over the stack. It burst into flames. A simple shield kept the smoke from rising and setting off any alarms, and Harry waited until everything turned to ash.

Harry collapsed the shield to smother the flames and waited a few seconds to be sure. He poured cold water from the sink over the ashes until it stopped smoking and brushed it into a paper towel to flush down three separate toilets. There was always a risk that someone could get their hands on enough remains to cast a reversal spell that would show them the pages.

Okay, this was done. Next. What was he supposed to do? Was possession real?

Harry headed downstairs. The PSI Library was located at the basement level. He hadn’t spent much time there recently, but he remembered the way. 

“Harry!” The librarian’s brown curls bounced as she ran towards him and hugged him tightly.

“Hi, Hermione,” Harry said. 

When PSI said that all employees had to pass basic training, they meant it. Harry had met Hermione in the intense twelve weeks of combat drills, and they had bonded over complaining about the sadism of the trainers. 

“You look better,” Hermione said warmly.

Harry thought of how sickly and thin he had looked after they found him, and, yeah, it would be hard to look worse. He hadn’t seen Hermione since after he left the medical wing, he realised. He hadn’t done much except sit at his desk and do mind-numbing work in an effort to forget. He hadn’t wanted to face his friends, see pity in their eyes. “We should get lunch together some day,” Harry said abruptly. “You can tell me what new books you have, and I’ll tell you about the handsome agent I’ve been flirting with.”

Hermione’s eyes sparkled, and she didn’t comment on the suddenness of the offer. “It’s a plan. But is that why you’re here or…” 

“Oh, um, do you have books on possession?” 

“Demon possession or ghost possession?”

There were different kinds? “Uh, either. I’m mainly looking for background information right now.”

Hermione hummed and turned on her tablet. “There aren’t many recorded real cases because most people aren’t dumb enough to open a hell gate and few ghosts manage to gain enough power to possess a person. However, we do have some theories published, and I can get you those.” She typed into the keyboard attached. “I’ve sent you electronic copies of the titles I thought of off the top of my head. I’ll look into it some more and send you what I come up with.” 

“Thanks,” Harry said gratefully. 

“Any time. What’s this for anyway? Are you working an operation with possessions?” With questions about operations, PSI agents needed to be careful about how they responded because different people had different clearances. However, Hermione, as the librarian, had one of the highest clearances because she often needed to do research for operations. Which meant Harry couldn’t use that as an excuse.

“No, it’s, uh, some personal reading. I won’t take agency resources outside the premises, don’t worry.” PSI policy dictated that no one was allowed to remove secure material without checking it out, which involved more paperwork and questions. 

“Okay. I’ll look into it more and see what I can dig up for you. And Harry? I’m really happy to see you.”

“I missed you too,” he said. 

Harry scurried back up to TSS before Hermione could think of why he wanted to know about possession. He found himself yawning once he sat down and hurriedly drank another mouthful of coffee. No way in the abyss was he going to fall asleep before he figured out how to ward his body against both demons and ghosts.

* * *

Harry yawned and reached for his cup again. The coffee had gone cold, and it was bitter in his mouth but he swallowed it down with a shudder. For once, TSS was pretty empty, with only a small number of essential personnel in the office for emergencies. There were only two field operations happening at the moment, and both were low-risk. 

He had gone over the texts Hermione had sent him until he went cross eyed, and none of it made any sense. He hadn’t picked up any innocuous objects recently. He hadn’t gone anywhere strange recently. He most definitely hadn’t tried summoning a demon recently, nor had he smelled any sulphur.

Moreover, possessions didn’t usually result in the being trying to communicate with the owner of the body. And Harry could find no mention of strange dreams or being transported to another world. 

Frustrated, he grabbed a pen and started scribbling down his questions. 

**Is this possession? If so, ghostly or demonic possession?**  
**Is what I am experiencing in my dreams real?**  
**Who is Marvolo?????**

His eyes ached to close and Harry stifled another yawn. _Just five minutes,_ he thought, stretching a little. Five minutes to rest his eyes and then he would go back to reading. 

Harry was a fool.

 _Harry cursed a storm when he saw himself in that cell again. He must have fallen asleep again when he closed his eyes like an utter_ idiot.

 _The wall slid open and Marvolo walked in. “Problem?” he asked._

_There had to be cameras in this room spying on him. The demon/ghost had told him to not trust Marvolo, not that Harry would have anyway. He definitely did not trust the being either, but in the end, Harry could admit he was a spy even if he only worked a desk job. He would hoard any information he had until he was sure who to trust._

_“Just bit my tongue,” he said with false lightness. His palms sweated as he stared at Marvolo, and only the bandages around his hands prevented him from clenching a fist._

_“You look nervous,” Marvolo said._

_“Well, I think anyone would be nervous when they are being held prisoner.”_

_“You can free yourself at any moment. You know what we want.”_

_For a moment, Harry thought that he didn’t, but then he remembered one of the earliest encounters. Marvolo had said something about maps then. Why would maps be so important to him? “What would you do if I told you?” Harry asked instead, curious about whether he could learn more about this world._

_Dark eyes sharpened on him. “If you wanted, I would let you go. Set you up with a new identity. We have ways of removing the Ministry’s tags, even on the G9 clones.”_

_He was a_ clone _? Or his demon, Harry supposed, but if this were hell, it was definitely not what he imagined. “I’ll think about it,” Harry said, the typical response he sent when he meant he would forget about it. It wasn’t like he could do anything either. The only maps he knew of were the ones for the Chamber of Secrets, and he was pretty sure they weren’t the maps Marvolo wanted._

_Maybe playing along had been a bad decision._

_“Perhaps you would like to do it outside of your cell.”_

_That sounded promising and ominous. Harry stared at Marvolo, trying to determine if the man—another demon or ghost?—intended to take him somewhere and cut off a finger or two. Marvolo’s face remained as inscrutable as ever. Harry nodded, half-convinced it was a horrible decision._

_Marvolo held the cuffs Harry recognized from the first time. With a sigh, Harry held out his hands and let Marvolo slide them around his wrists. If Operation Cloak hadn’t fully ruined being bound for him, this dream-world surely would. The thought gave Harry an involuntary shudder; even now, the memories haunted him too much for a joke to work._

_They walked through the grey halls until they reached the garden Harry had fled to. Harry stiffened at the familiar sight. Would Marvolo hurt him here?_

_“We’ve fought to preserve what we can,” Marvolo said. “It’s all real, as you likely gathered the last time you were here. No digital generation at all.”_

_The technology of this dream-world—Harry needed to find a better way to describe this place—was superior to his own. The sliding wall-door, the weird magnetic cuffs, and now digital generation of gardens all added to that theory._

_He had also seen no magic at all in the time he had been here. Harry tried to create a spark, one small enough to be unseen, and nothing happened. Or maybe it was that this body didn’t have magic._

_Because it was not his body, Harry had started to realize. On the surface, it appeared identical to his own. However, there were certain things that weren’t quite right. The way the sudden light in the garden didn’t hurt his eyes, though the facility was dimly lit. The itching of his knuckles that indicated the wounds were almost healed, a process that should have taken longer than it did, assuming time in this place and in his own world worked as a one-to-one scale. And of course, the lack of magic within him._

_The garden was an indoor garden. He had failed to notice this the first time, but the garden was lit with artificial light from the ceiling. “What is your motivation for making this real garden instead of using digital generation?” Harry asked after reciting it a few times in his head to make sure he could say it without hesitation._

_“We are testing a theory that such an environment provides stability and relaxation for people working in a high-stress environment,” Marvolo said. “Also, I have been informed that people enjoy it, and that increases productivity, so the time and effort needed to invest in this garden may prove to be worth it.”_

_“It sounds very”—clinical—“nice,” Harry said. “Admirable goals.”_

_“You could join us,” Marvolo said, dark eyes staring at Harry intensely. “We would value a man of your talents.”_

_Harry thought about PSI and how they had paid for therapy and time off, then fast tracked his application to switch departments. He thought about Daphne making him feel welcome. He thought about Hermione, who understood he needed time and then helped him without asking why. “The people I work with value me too,” he said without thinking._

_Marvolo arched an eyebrow. “Other G9s maybe, but you think the Ministry values you? When they would recalibrate you in an instant if they thought you a threat?”_

_Harry didn’t quite understand what Marvolo was saying, but he had a feeling it was horrible. “I…”_

_“But you don’t work for the Ministry. In fact, based on our research, you’re an independent contractor for physical retrievals who works alone. Or rather my prisoner is. So who are you?”_

_“I…” Harry trailed off again. Could he wake up now? Please?_

_“I suppose he could have paid someone to take his place, but there isn’t a hologram this stable in existence. Our facilities are secure, and our cameras are on an internal loop. I sincerely doubt anyone can smuggle a double in without us noticing.” Marvolo arched an eyebrow. “I’m very curious as to how you did it.”_

_“I don’t know what you want to hear,” Harry said. “I did nothing.”_

_“What is your name?”_

_Harry stared at Marvolo. The top note had been signed by something. It had been his name, followed by four numbers. What were the numbers? 2557? No that didn’t sound quite right._

_Harry opened his mouth to respond_ but Marvolo was no longer there. He saw a blurry image of a paper and reached up with a hand to rub the haze from his eyes.

It was the note he had written of questions, but it had more. 

**Is this possession? If so, ghostly or demonic possession? _I am neither a ghost nor a demon. You are not being possessed. We are simply bound across time and space._**  
**Is what I am experiencing in my dreams real? _Yes._ **  
**Who is Marvolo????? _Marvolo is the head interrogator for the Knights, a rebellion group fighting against my current government and makers. He is renowned for his ability to find answers and secrets from prisoners._**

Footsteps approached. Harry crumpled the note in his hand and shoved it under his butt.

“Did you fall asleep again?” Daphne asked, as she stopped by his desk, a cup of steaming coffee dangling precariously from her hand. “You don’t have to spend so much time at the office, you realize. Go home. Get some rest.”

“I don’t think I could sleep right now even if I wanted to,” Harry said, shivering at the thought of confronting Marvolo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy (early) Valentine's Day, lovely readers!


	5. Answers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> new tags: threats of mental rape, violence

_Harry-2257 stared at the scribbles on the paper. He could read about half of it, but it was enough for him to understand. Or not. What did his sleeper mean by possession? Ghosts and demons? Was he serious? What kind of world was this?_

_He scrawled his response quickly, taking care to hold the paper close to the sleeper so people passing by could not see its contents._

A sudden shift later, Harry-2257 found himself staring at Marvolo. 

“Well?” the man asked. 

“I do not know what you are talking about,” Harry-2257 said honestly.

“Perhaps a mental retrieval will make you reconsider.” 

What had his sleeper done for Marvolo to bring up mental retrievals? “Would you really risk losing my knowledge and a retriever?” Harry-2257 fired back. 

“The failure rate is less than five percent,” Marvolo said. 

Average failure rate hovered around twenty percent. Five percent meant Marvolo had one of the best. He was serious. 

“Wait,” Harry-2257 blurted, unable to bear the thought of having his mind invaded. “I’ll tell you what you want to know. But I want something in return.” 

“Are you really trying to bargain with me in your position?” Marvolo asked, amusement clear in his words.

“Prove you’re the person your organisation claims to want our leaders to be,” Harry-2257 said. “Mental invasions are a tool of the Ministry.”

Marvolo sighed. “It is such a useful tool. But…perhaps. Share your information and we’ll see how much it’s worth.”

“A deal first,” Harry-2257 said. “I stole from the Ministry. They’ll kill me.” 

Marvolo shrugged. “You’ll come back. And don’t you mean, _my_ G9 stole from the Ministry?” 

Oh heavens, _what had his sleeper done?_ Marvolo clearly realised he wasn’t always mentally present. But it didn’t matter with what he was going to reveal. Harry-2257 met Marvolo’s eyes. “I won’t. Not this time. And I’m not yours.”

Marvolo raised an eyebrow. “Intriguing. What do you want?” 

“I want to be allowed to go places without being watched over by your guards or being held by binding cuffs. I want a room with a mechwall or door that I can lock from the inside. I want to not be a prisoner.”

“You don’t want to leave?” A hint of surprise in his words.

Harry-2257 would love to leave. It just might cost his life if he couldn’t come to terms with his sleeper first though. “Yes or no?” 

“I can’t promise a room without cameras. You’re a security risk. But as a show of good faith.” Marvolo stretched out his hand and the binding cuffs fell off Harry-2257’s wrists. 

He took a deep breath and his own leap of faith. “I found the maps to the serum,” Harry-2257 said. “It was protected by a G7.” After the G6 catastrophe, the ministry had created G7s to be entirely programmed by their people, but it had proven too hard to actively maintain a force that had to be directed their every action. Harry-2257 had thought that G7s were extinct until then. “I got the maps but the G7 injected me with something at the same time.” Then he had broken the neck of the G7 and fled. Harry-2257 swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. “It was the Veritas Serum.” Truth serum, named because it would supposedly show them the truth of death when used. 

Marvolo’s eyes widened. “You’re sure? How do you know?” 

“I’ve been to the other world,” Harry-2257 said. “The theories are true. We are all connected to a sleeper who looks like us, and they live another life completely unrelated to this one.” 

“And if that theory is true, it’s very likely that the bond that connects you to your sleeper has strengthened enough to ensure true death to both of you even if you were the one to die rather than your sleeper,” Marvolo concluded. 

“I can download the maps from my implants for you to locate the serum, but it’s not necessary. You can draw my blood and reverse-engineer the serum, use it in your war.”

Marvolo nodded, a distracted look on his face. “I want you to go to the labs and let them run a few tests on you.” 

Harry-2257 froze. “Not a…” 

“Not a recalibration facility. I wouldn’t wipe your personality, Harry.”

“You keep forgetting my identifier.” 

“The identifier is only necessary because the Ministry mass-produces a labour force and can’t keep track of all of you. But there is only one of you here.”

“Oh.” Harry-2257 didn’t know what to say to that. He didn’t mind his identifier actually; it felt as much a part of him as “Harry” did. Also, he needed a way to distinguish himself from his sleeper now that he knew that they shared the same name. 

“Would you prefer the medical facility? Luna can extract your blood and send it down for tests instead.” 

Harry-2257 nodded. Marvolo didn’t look like he judged Harry-2257’s fear of labs, but he knew that the interrogator was noting it down in his mind, possibly to use against Harry-2257 in the future.

They walked to medical and Luna drew Harry-2257’s blood quickly. With his advanced healing factor, the tiny hole closed within seconds of Luna withdrawing the needle. She used the white four-by-four gauze to wipe the excess blood drop from Harry-2257’s arm. “All set then.”

“Thank you,” he told Luna.

“No, thank _you_ ,” she said, blue-grey eyes warm. “We’ll treat this with care. And Marvolo will treat you with care.” She turned her eyes on Marvolo, staring hard at him like they had some kind of mental connection. 

Marvolo ignored Luna and nodded at Harry-2257. “Come. I’ll give you one of the rooms in the living quarters.”

Harry-2257 half-wondered if Marvolo was about to take him to be executed now that he had what he wanted, but they made it through the facility to a new place he hadn’t been yet. Gone were the grey walls and prison-like environment, and in its place were cream-coloured open spaces with sofas that looked like he could sink into them and never get up again. 

“This is a shared area,” Marvolo said, gesturing around them. “We give everyone individual or family rooms depending on what they prefer. This is an individual section.” He produced a key and unlocked a door, revealing a sparse room. “For you. There are two keys for emergency purposes. This one is yours.” He handed it to Harry-2257. “The other one is kept with security. No one will enter your room without permission unless, like I said, an emergency happens.” 

“What counts as an emergency?” Harry-2257 asked. 

Marvolo shrugged. “Security complications,” he said. 

It was the most evasive answer to a question Harry-2257 had ever heard before, but he took the hint and didn’t ask again.

“I’ll leave you to get settled in. If you need anything, ask me.”

Harry-2257 doubted that he would ever willingly ask Marvolo for anything, but he nodded and entered the room. Marvolo didn’t try to come in behind him, and he shut the door. 

He immediately combed through everything in the room, feeling the bed, taking apart the lights, even tapping the floorboards for signs of secret compartments and hidden cameras. He found nothing. Maybe they hadn’t gotten around to placing cameras yet. It had been, to put it lightly, a rather unexpected day, and it had only just started. 

Harry-2257 resolved to search the room once more in three days and stretched out on the bed, enjoying the feeling of something soft under his back.

The people of this world didn’t sleep, but that didn’t stop them from wanting soft things to lie down and sit down on, take a moment to relax and adjust. Beds had been created as part of therapeutic techniques around three centuries ago, and he very much appreciated it.

Imprisonment had taught him to cope with the boredom of being caged and to wait for someone to come before he acted. It didn’t occur to him until much later that he could do something without waiting for permission. Harry-2257 cautiously opened the door. When no alarms went off and no guards came running, he stepped outside.

It bothered Harry-2257 that he had grown used to captivity in so short a time, and he forced himself to explore the common area even as he felt like someone was at his back watching his every move. He found a notepad and a pen, and he took the time to write his sleeper another note.

**To Harry: When you see this, we will have switched places again. Marvolo has discovered that something is happening, and I was forced to tell him the truth. I worry about his motives though we made a deal. Please be wary and do not trust him. I currently know of no other ways to communicate other than writing notes for the other to read when we switch bodies. I believe it will be beneficial for us to exchange information about the events that happen in both our lives, and I hope you agree.**  
**-Harry-2257**

He ripped it off the rest of the pad and folded it, clenched it in his hands since he had no pocket. Hopefully, his sleeper would also see the message and continue the communication. This archaic method was slow and irritating, but what else could he do? At least the sleeper was responding in a way of sorts, even if he did think that Harry-2257 was a demon possessing his body. 

With time to think about it, Harry-2257 finally realised that there were more differences than he thought between their worlds. He didn’t know how it had taken him so long, but then, again, he had been distracted by the struggle of maintaining a vibrant life he knew nothing about.

Demons? Really? Perhaps it was code for something.

A woman with fuzzy brown hair shrugged off a jacket as she walked in. She startled at the sight of Harry-2257 and offered a stiff smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Hello, can I help you?”

“Hello,” Harry-2257 echoed automatically. “I’m—" What was he supposed to say? Would Marvolo drag him back to the cell if he said something to the wrong person. “I’m Harry-2257, G9,” he said finally. “I was given a room here by Marvolo.” 

The namedrop soothed the woman, and her smile turned a little more genuine. “I’m Hermione. I do research for the Knights along with some field work once in a while. Are you a recent defect?” 

“Yes,” Harry-2257 said even though he wasn’t sure that he counted as a defect. 

“That’s fascinating. I’ve read a lot about G9 clones. Is it true the Ministry finally perfected the AHF?” 

Harry-2257 nodded. “Some of the earlier production models don’t have the advanced healing factor though,” he said. “They got it to work at around 500.” 

“I used to want to work for the Ministry when I was younger,” Hermione chattered. “I don’t want you to get the idea that I’m not loyal to the Knights. It’s so easy to get caught up in propaganda when you’re young which I’m sure you understand. And even now, I suppose.”

“The Ministry has a lot of talented people working for them,” he said neutrally. “How did you come by the Knights?” 

“There’s a lot of wrong with our world. I used to want to change it from within, join the Ministry and make lives better. But I lacked the political power”—her nose wrinkled and she scowled in distaste—“and I found the Knights instead.” She flashed another quick smile. “There was this one time when this man felt betrayed when he found out that I hadn’t always wanted to join the Knights.” She rolled her eyes. “So now, I tend to tell people when I first meet them. 

“Oh,” Harry-2257 said. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to?” 

“I don’t feel any shame for who I was as a child. Well, I did, but the mandatory psych sessions helped.” 

The _what_?

Before Harry-2257 got a chance to ask, Hermione stepped into her room and came back sans coat. “I can show you around. That is, if you would like me to.”

“That would be nice,” Harry-2257 said, and Hermione’s smile widened.

* * *

Harry-2257 returned to the room with information buzzing in his head. People and places and random bits of information about the Knights. Nothing about their security, of course. It hadn’t taken him long to notice that they didn’t tell him anything of worth, not even a sign as to where the base was located. 

The implants in his head struggled to record the information dump before he lost it all—they weren’t the newest model after all—and he ended up lying in bed and shutting his eyes in a facsimile of sleep. 

It was interesting wasn’t it, that he knew what sleep was, that he was even more connected to his sleeper than all the others of his world, yet, he still lacked the ability to sleep? What even was sleep other than a theoretical concept to them? 

_His head swam with the tell-tale sign of a shift, and Harry-2257 opened his eyes to see the workstation of his sleeper. He shifted around in his chair, trying to become accustomed to sitting up when seconds ago, he had only just been lying down. Was it as jarring for his sleeper as it was for him?_

_Harry-2257 searched the desk for another note, but there was nothing. However, he saw the screen, always black before, dimly lit this time, and he lifted the device. When his finger brushed the screen accidentally, it lit up brighter._

_**Project Asterion: Ongoing**. It was the job about the spy, Harry-2257 remembered. He swiped up the screen and read through the project details. The Chamber of Secrets caught his eye. The Ministry was rumoured to store their drug in a secret chamber as well. Could the sleeper be working for his equivalent of the Ministry? Could _Marvolo’s sleeper _be working for his own Ministry? Harry-2257 imagined the horror Marvolo would feel if he learned this and let out a small chuckle._

_The rest of it read like a horror story of mislabelled blueprints and agents and support staff struggling to find the maps and keep Tom alive at the same time. No wonder they thought there was a mole in TSS; not even the most incompetent person would be able to make such a catastrophe of a simple mission._

_Harry-2257 wondered if he should hate the agents for keeping Tom alive. After all, if he had died, Harry-2257 would be free of Marvolo. And then he would never have a chance to get to know Tom, whose life he was stupidly starting to get involved in. The thought hurt, and Harry-2257 pushed it away to focus on learning about his sleeper. Former MT, now TSS agent, wardbreaker._

_So magic was truly real, not just a fictional creation by fantasy authors in this world? Harry-2257 struggled to wrap his mind around that. But then again, wasn’t this a sort of magic, that he could literally exchange bodies with a person who looked exactly like him, every time his counterpart fell asleep?_

_Could_ he _do magic? Was magic something inherent or was it something that had to be taught?_

_Harry-2257 closed the page on Project Asterion and looked through the device for any possible sources of magic. Despite never handling something like this before, he found its use intuitive, and soon enough, he found a folder of electronic books._

_The ones in the front focused on demonology and ghost possessions, reminiscent of the questions Harry-2257 had found the last time they switched places. He opened one and looked through the sleeper’s bookmarks and notes, found nothing of interest other than the conclusion that this wasn’t the typical demonic possession._

_He returned to the electronic library and dug through more books, but the rest were all on warding and wardcrafting, which apparently involved drawing accurate pictures of tiny symbols and the slightest tremor in his hand would result in explosions and lost body parts. He hastily set the device down before he could blow his sleeper—and himself—up._

_“You know, I thought I was work-obsessed, but you take it to a whole new level.”_

_Harry-2257 flinched at the sight of Marvolo._ Tom, _he reminded himself. The nice one. “What do you mean?”_

 _“You’ve been here for over forty hours. If McGonagall knew, she would’ve sent you home hours ago.”_

_“Are you stalking my—me?”_

_“I’m a spy, darling.” At least he knew for sure what Tom did now even though he had made a logical assumption from the meeting. “Come on, I’ll take you home. Where’s your flat.”_

_“No, thank you,” Harry-2257 said stiffly. Even if he would allow Tom to take him to his sleeper’s flat, he didn’t know where it was. And it felt good to say no to Tom even though he still feared what Tom would do._

_Tom flashed a warm smile. He didn’t push or try again. Marvolo would have. “All right then. What are you doing right now?”_

_“I’m reading.” He glanced down at the device. “Vilarri runes and wards.”_

_Tom raised an eyebrow. “You planning on killing someone?”_

_“What?”_

_“Vilarri emphasises battle magic. Unless there have been changes since I was in school.” Tom shrugged, not at all fazed by the possibility he didn’t know everything. “Runic academia tends to come out with new changes, and it’s been a bit difficult to keep up with everything.”_

_“Yes, with you being a spy,” Harry-2257 murmured. “No, I was refreshing my memory. For…you know.” Catching a mole required battle magic, right?_

_“For the paintball game we’re planning?”_

_Harry-2257 nodded. “Yes, that.”_

_“You don’t need to worry, darling. I’ll protect you from being hit.”_

_“I’m not helpless. I won’t be helpless.”_

_“I never said you were. You brought me home, after all.”_

_Harry-2257 thought Tom meant that his sleeper had literally taken Tom home and turned bright red before understanding the reference to Asterion. “I doubt you’re helpless either,” Harry-2257 said._

_Tom let out a rich laugh and smiled at Harry-2257. “I’m helpless before your beauty.”_

_His cheeks burned even hotter. “I’m not pretty.”_

_“Fishing for compliments? I’d be happy to oblige over a meal if you’re interested.”_

_Harry-2257 stared at the man who looked identical to Marvolo yet was a completely different person and knew he should say no. It would be stupid to get attached to someone in another world, especially if he despised Tom’s counterpart. Even worse, his sleeper could wake up and be confused about what was happening. And it was a kind of deception, wasn’t it? Tom thought he was speaking to Harry, not Harry-2257._

_“Sorry, I have to get back to my Vilarri runes. But ask me again. Another time maybe when we don’t have the…paintball game coming up.”_

_To his relief, Tom didn’t look offended. “You’ll have to do the asking next time. Rejections wound my ego too much,” he said, warmth never fading from his face. “Sometime after I return from Asterion?”_

_“You’re leaving already?”_

_Tom paused and stared at Harry-2257 for a moment before nodding. “You told me earlier that you found which bank the payment transfer to the shapeshifter came from, remember?”_

_“Right, sorry. I probably do need some sleep. I’ll see you next time, then.” Harry-2257 watched Tom walk away and imagined telling him about sleepers and dreams and connections across space and time. He fantasised about Tom listening and understanding, and his chest ached from the impossibility of it all._

_Happy endings existed only in stories._

_As if fate wanted to prove his point, a sudden blast took out the front doors. Harry-2257 found himself shoved to the ground before he could react, Tom a heavy weight on top of him. “Get off,” he hissed._

_“Hush and stay down,” Tom whispered as he rolled to a crouch, staying low and out of sight. He reached behind him and drew a gun. He ejected the current clip and took one out of his boot, slid it in with a practised ease that told Harry-2257 the spy was definitely familiar with the weapon._

_A five-man team came in through the door and fanned out. One of them fired a round at a desk, and a small explosion rocked the room, sending the people hiding there sprawling. “I’d say calm down and no one will be hurt, but that would be a lie,” the leading man drawled. “But give me Harry Potter and I’ll keep the casualties to a minimum.”_

_Tom reached out and yanked Harry-2257 to him, shoving him under his sleeper’s workstation. “Stay and don’t do anything stupid,” he murmured to Harry-2257’s ear._

_Why would he—oh, Harry Potter was his sleeper. Or him right now, he supposed._

_“I can take them out, but they’d probably kill a good amount of TSS while they’re at it. It would make our paintball game easier perhaps, but PSI does like to keep their agents alive.”_

_“If they want me, let them take me,” Harry-2257 whispered back. He could take them as long as his sleeper—Harry—stayed asleep._

_“That’s noble of you and all, but I saw what they did to you last time. There’s no way I’m letting them lay a hand on you.”_

_“What?” What had Harry done in his home world to get a team of armed persons after him?_

_“I was one of the people on the scene of Operation Cloak. You were pretty out of it, and you needed surgery, and then your friends were present, so it’s not surprising you don’t remember me. Look, we don’t have time to talk about it now, and you can yell at me later. After I kill them all.” Tom moved away before Harry-2257 could protest or say something stupid._

_“I must admire PSI’s security,” the speaker continued. “Nearly impossible to get through the wards without a key, and even if you do, there’s a bloody big magic-resistant metal wall to lase through. Which means we’ll be undisturbed for a few hours. Give me Harry Potter, or I’ll be killing someone every five minutes. You have no place to go, and I’ll find him, with or without your help. Why don’t you do yourself a favour and cooperate?” He paused._

_No one moved or said a word._

_“Very well then.”_

_Through the holes in his workstation, Harry-2257 saw the speaker point his gun—which could apparently fire explosive bullets—at a woman with familiar blond hair. Luna._

_“Wait!” Harry-2257 yelled without thinking. He stood slowly, arms raised in surrender as he prayed that Harry wouldn’t wake up until this was over._

_The speaker walked over and raked his eyes over Harry-2257. “Well, you look rather well. How have you been?”_

_“I’ve been absolutely fantastic. I dream of stabbing your face until you’re a bloody mess on the floor every night,” Harry-2257 said calmly. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tom bury his face in his hands and assumed it was a good response._

_“You think of me that often? I’m flattered to know I had such an impact on your life.”_

_“Torturing someone does tend to engrain you into their memories.”_

_“I don’t remember you having this much fight in you the first time.”_

_“People change.” Or found their bodies taken over whenever they fell asleep._

_The man bared a fearsome grin that promised pain. “We’ll have fun together.” He grabbed Harry-2257’s raised hands._

_“I doubt it,” Harry-2257 said and felt his body jerking away in space._

_They hit the ground with a splash. Harry-2257 sprawled in the dirty water, his head spinning as he struggled to focus and take in his surroundings. What was that supposed to be? Where was he? Tunnels of some sort?_

_“You were always abysmal with portkeys,” his new captor said with a sigh. “Get up.” He nudged Harry-2257’s body with a boot._

_“I think I broke something,” Harry-2257 gritted out._

_One of the others hauled him to his feet. Harry-2257 had seen the others, assumed they were all dressed the same, and he stomped on the man’s boot and elbowed him in the gut, hard enough to jerk his own shoulder with a crack. He kicked back as hard as he could when the man stumbled back. Harry-2257. Harry twisted around and drew the gun from the assailant’s holster._

_He fired it at the speaker. The bullet came out with a blue glow of sorts and slammed into the wall when the speaker dove out of the way, taking out a large portion of the tunnel. He fired again, struck one of the women, and she screamed for a mere moment before her body disintegrated. The gun clicked empty the third time he tried to fire. He tossed it aside._

_The first man came at him from behind. Harry-2257 grabbed the man’s meaty arm and flipped him over, tossing him to the ground with a splash. He pulled on the arm, heard the tell-tale sound of a dislocation, and slammed his foot into the man’s ribs, feeling them crunch below his feet._

_“I guess you did learn something,” the speaker said. “Interesting. I’ll see you again some time.” He grabbed the last assailant and the two of them disappeared._

_Harry-2257 stared at the groaning man and felt his vision blurred._ He rubbed his eyes and came away to see himself staring at Marvolo. 

Wonderful timing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tentative preview of next chapter:  
>  _“What’s this?” He reached out and plucked the piece of paper out of Harry’s hands. His eyes flicked over the paper, and he looked up, face inscrutable. “We’ve met before.” It wasn’t a question._
> 
>  
> 
> _Harry didn’t respond._
> 
>  
> 
> _“Definitely when you didn’t know your dreamer’s history. But when else?”_
> 
>  
> 
>  _He still didn’t say a word._
> 
>  
> 
> _“I know you can speak. What do I call you?”_
> 
>  
> 
> _“Harry,” he croaked and cleared his throat. “Harry Potter.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on [tumblr](https://qualamity.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
